The Final Solution on Tisha B'av

The Holocaust is rooted in the destruction of the Temple -- which caused a loss of moral clarity in humanity.

"I walk out into the street as does everybody else thirsting for news [of the rumored deportations]," Hillel Seidman writes in his Warsaw Ghetto Diaries, "only to discover that from this morning the Ghetto has been surrounded by Ukrainian militia! These include some Latvians and Lithuanians – angels of destruction of every type. Anyone approaching the walls is shot on the spot. We are ensnared in a trap?"

Seidman describes being caught with thousands of other Jews and funneled by armed guard to the umschlagplatz, the waiting area to the train station. There, cattle cars – freight wagons normally used for transporting animals – are waiting to deport them to their deaths:

"And so we march? old and young, women and children, rich and poor? in lines of eight abreast, according to the German system, in our many thousands, and the crowd stretches back as far as the eye can see? Everybody presses tightly together; so united in suffering, so totally an Am Echad (one people). Never before have I sensed so palpably the strands which bind us Jews together; our common cause, and our united purpose like I do today on the death march?"

Seidman managed to escape deportation, but thousands of men, women and children did not. That night, his mind numb, he returned to his quarters:

"The tune that was perhaps first composed at the exile from Jerusalem and has since absorbed the tears of generations...

"How alone [Jerusalem] sits, the great city of many inhabitants?. Indeed how alone, how forlorn we are today.

"All [Jerusalem's] pursuers entrapped her in dire straits?. I called to my friends but they betrayed me. How true, how real those ancient lamentations read; how accurate they describe our present catastrophe?

"We Jews of Warsaw, sons of those exiles, sit on the ground to mourn our own personal churban, the destruction of a major community – the largest and most vigorous in Europe... We weep at our fate, a nation without a land, within the grasp of our fiercest enemy and condemned to death. We grieve both for the loss of the Holy Temple and the extinction of our lives. (Warsaw Ghetto Diaries, pgs. 55-6)

Factory of Death

The beginning of the end of the Warsaw Ghetto coincided with Tisha B'Av. Indeed, it was the day of Tisha B'Av itself, July 23, 1942, that the first trainload of Jews arrived at their destination, Treblinka, and sent to the gas chambers.

Remarkably, it was one year earlier, on July 31, 1941 (on the evening of the 8th of Av), that Hermann Goring signed a document to implement the "final solution of the Jewish problem," i.e. extermination. The Nazis had been killing Jews since the beginning, but not in a truly systematic fashion. Einsatzgruppen firing squads, which gunned down more than a million Jews, proved expensive and messy. Ghettos were disease-ridden, a bureaucratic nightmare to run, and ultimately too slow achieving the goal of extermination.

Treblinka required only 100 guards to murder one million people.

Treblinka, one of six death camps, was an entirely new phenomenon: a "factory of death." Built with renowned German industrial genius, it existed for the single purpose of murdering mass numbers of people, mostly Jews – in the quickest, most cost effective way possible.

Treblinka was the destination for most of Warsaw's Jews. It was roughly the size of two football fields, and utilized only about 20 SS police and 80 Ukrainian guards. In its 14 months of existence, more than 800,000 Jews were gassed to death.

The Final Solution was decreed the day before Tisha B'Av 1941, and the cattle cars left Warsaw, the largest ghetto with 400,000 Jews, on Tisha B'Av 1942.

Day of Infamy

The first national tragedy that took place on Tisha B'Av was the decree that the generation who left Egypt with Moses would not be allowed into the Promised Land. They had panicked at the thought of confronting the mighty kingdoms occupying Canaan, and they accepted the spies' recommendation not to enter the Land. Their fear caused them to forget all the miracles that had led to the Exodus, and in effect caused them to even forget God.

Some eight centuries later, the first Holy Temple, built by King Solomon, was destroyed by the Babylonians – on Tisha B'Av. Then, 490 years later, the Romans destroyed the Second Temple – also on Tisha B'Av.

One generation later, tens of thousands of Jews fortified themselves up in the city of Beitar, as part of the Bar Kochba revolt against the Romans. When the city fell, all the Jewish inhabitants were killed – a catastrophe that Maimonides likens to the destruction of the Temple itself.

The infamy of Tisha B'Av continued through the generations. On Tisha B'Av in the year 1290, Edward I issued an edict of expulsion for the Jews from England. Tisha B'Av 1492 is also the day of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain.

On Tisha B'Av 1914, World War I began – a war whose outcome triggered World War II and its Holocaust. Indeed, immediately after World War I, the great rabbi the Chafetz Chaim said that despite the scope of the war, it was not the "war to end all wars," but merely a prelude to a far worse war that would take place 25-30 years later.

Moral Clarity

All tragedies that befall the Jewish people are rooted in the original one. The Holocaust may have been unique in scope, but it is an extension of the destruction of the Temple and ensuing exile. In fact, when a leading rabbi was asked by Menachem Begin which day the Israeli government should designate as Holocaust Remembrance Day, the rabbi replied that no special day is necessary, as we already have Tisha B'Av.

How is the Temple's destruction connected to the Holocaust and these other national tragedies?

The Temple stood for the spiritual truths of Torah – justice, equality, respect for life. The Temple enabled God's immediate presence be felt in every moment of every Jew's life. It served as a vibrant, indispensable source of morality and clarity for the entire world. The destruction of the Temple removed from the Jewish people the vital contact with the Divine and caused a rupture in humanity – a loss of moral clarity and direction. And the Jews bore the brunt of the ensuing barbarism.

That is what we mourn on Tisha B'Av.

That is why we must recommit ourselves to the building of the Holy Temple and the ideals it impressed upon the world.

Article written in the merit of my father, Chaim Benyamin ben Yaakov Reuven, z'l. May his memory be a blessing.

A former yeshiva teacher and principal, who has also taught in various kiruv/outreach capacities, he has written or edited more than 25 books, including Sefer Nehemiah and Trei Asar, Vol. 1, in the ArtScroll Tanach Series. He has been a frequent contributor to Aish.com, the largest Jewish content site on the web, and has also published numerous articles over the years in The Jewish Observer, Mishpachah Magazine, Yated Ne'eman and other publications.

He has worked with Rabbi Joseph Elias, shlita, on producing the Holocaust Curriculum for Torah Umesorah. He is currently working with Rabbi Berel Wein producing an online Jewish History course for the Destiny Foundation. Visit his website at: www.jewishsoulsearching.com

I'm told that it's a mitzvah to become intoxicated on Purim. This puzzles me, because to my understanding, it is not considered a good thing to become intoxicated, period.

One of the characteristics of the at-risk youth is their use of drugs, including alcohol. In my experience, getting drunk doesn't reveal secrets. It makes people act stupid and irresponsible, doing things they would never do if they were sober. Also, I know a lot about the horrible health effects of abusing alcohol, because I work at a research center that focuses on addiction and substance abuse.

Also, I am an alcoholic, which means that if I drink, very bad things happen. I have not had a drink in 22 years, and I have no intention of starting now. Surely there must be instances where a person is excused from the obligation to drink. I don't see how Judaism could ever promote the idea of getting drunk. It just doesn't seem right.

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Putting aside for a moment all the spiritual and philosophical reasons for getting drunk on Purim, this remains an issue of common sense. Of course, teenagers should be warned of the dangers of acute alcohol ingestion. Of course, nobody should drink and drive. Of course, nobody should become so drunk to the point of negligence in performing mitzvot. And of course, a recovering alcoholic should not partake of alcohol on Purim.

Indeed, the Code of Jewish Law explicitly says that if one suspects the drinking may affect him negatively, then he should NOT drink.

Getting drunk on Purim is actually one of the most difficult mitzvot to do correctly. A person should only drink if it will lead to positive spiritual results - e.g. under the loosening affect of the alcohol, greater awareness will surface of the love for God and Torah found deep in the heart. (Perhaps if we were on a higher spiritual level, we wouldn't need to get drunk!)

Yet the Talmud still speaks of an obligation on Purim of "not knowing the difference between Blessed is Mordechai and Cursed is Haman." How then should a person who doesn't drink get the point of “not knowing”? Simple - just go to sleep! (Rama - OC 695:2)

All this applies to individuals. But the question remains - does drinking on Purim adversely affect the collective social health of the Jewish community?

The aversion to alcoholism is engrained into Jewish consciousness from a number of Biblical and Talmudic sources. There are the rebuking words of prophets - Isaiah 28:1, Hosea 3:1 with Rashi, and Amos 6:6, and the Zohar says that "The wicked stray after wine" (Midrash Ne'alam Parshat Vayera).

It is well known that the rate of alcoholism among Jews has historically been very low. Numerous medical, psychological and sociological studies have confirmed this. The connection between Judaism and sobriety is so evident, that the following conversation is reported by Lawrence Kelemen in "Permission to Receive":

When Dr. Mark Keller, editor of the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, commented that "practically all Jews do drink, and yet all the world knows that Jews hardly ever become alcoholics," his colleague, Dr. Howard Haggard, director of Yale's Laboratory of Applied Physiology, jokingly proposed converting alcoholics to the Jewish religion in order to immerse them in a culture with healthy attitudes toward drinking!

Perhaps we could suggest that it is precisely because of the use of alcohol in traditional ceremonies (Kiddush, Bris, Purim, etc.), that Jews experience such low rates of alcoholism. This ceremonial usage may actually act like an inoculation - i.e. injecting a safe amount that keeps the disease away.

Of course, as we said earlier, all this needs to be monitored with good common sense. Yet in my personal experience - having been in the company of Torah scholars who were totally drunk on Purim - they acted with extreme gentleness and joy. Amid the Jewish songs and beautiful words of Torah, every year the event is, for me, very special.

Adar 12 marks the dedication of Herod's renovations on the second Holy Temple in Jerusalem in 11 BCE. Herod was king of Judea in the first century BCE who constructed grand projects like the fortresses at Masada and Herodium, the city of Caesarea, and fortifications around the old city of Jerusalem. The most ambitious of Herod's projects was the re-building of the Temple, which was in disrepair after standing over 300 years. Herod's renovations included a huge man-made platform that remains today the largest man-made platform in the world. It took 10,000 men 10 years just to build the retaining walls around the Temple Mount; the Western Wall that we know today is part of that retaining wall. The Temple itself was a phenomenal site, covered in gold and marble. As the Talmud says, "He who has not seen Herod's building, has never in his life seen a truly grand building."

Some people gauge the value of themselves by what they own. But in reality, the entire concept of ownership of possessions is based on an illusion. When you obtain a material object, it does not become part of you. Ownership is merely your right to use specific objects whenever you wish.

How unfortunate is the person who has an ambition to cleave to something impossible to cleave to! Such a person will not obtain what he desires and will experience suffering.

Fortunate is the person whose ambition it is to acquire personal growth that is independent of external factors. Such a person will lead a happy and rewarding life.

With exercising patience you could have saved yourself 400 zuzim (Berachos 20a).

This Talmudic proverb arose from a case where someone was fined 400 zuzim because he acted in undue haste and insulted some one.

I was once pulling into a parking lot. Since I was a bit late for an important appointment, I was terribly annoyed that the lead car in the procession was creeping at a snail's pace. The driver immediately in front of me was showing his impatience by sounding his horn. In my aggravation, I wanted to join him, but I saw no real purpose in adding to the cacophony.

When the lead driver finally pulled into a parking space, I saw a wheelchair symbol on his rear license plate. He was handicapped and was obviously in need of the nearest parking space. I felt bad that I had harbored such hostile feelings about him, but was gratified that I had not sounded my horn, because then I would really have felt guilty for my lack of consideration.

This incident has helped me to delay my reactions to other frustrating situations until I have more time to evaluate all the circumstances. My motives do not stem from lofty principles, but from my desire to avoid having to feel guilt and remorse for having been foolish or inconsiderate.

Today I shall...

try to withhold impulsive reaction, bearing in mind that a hasty act performed without full knowledge of all the circumstances may cause me much distress.

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